Memories of Days Past
by smaragdbird
Summary: One evening they all sit aournd a fire and talk about the things they miss most since Judgement Day happened.  Gen


"Chocolate milk." Blair said. They were sitting around a bowl filled with glomming coals. Derek kept throwing suspicious glances at Marcus as if Marcus could explode at any moment but Marcus either stared into the coals or watched Kyle and Star, who had curled up in a corner a while ago, sleep and didn't notice.

"What?" Marcus asked with a laugh.

"Chocolate milk," Blair repeated: "My mum used to make a cup of it every morning. Of all the things that we don't have any more that's what I miss the most. Aside from the obvious, of course."

"We have milk powder." Wisher, one of their mechanics and Derek's best friend said and then amended: "Sometimes at least."

Blair made a face: "That stuff is disgusting. Nothing like real milk and we still lack the chocolate powder."

"Are there even any cows left?" Marcus asked and everyone shrugged.

"A handful maybe." Wisher said eventually.

"What about you?" Blair asked Derek: "What do you miss the most?"

"I used to play baseball with my friends in a park near our house." Derek answered: "We were there nearly every day."

"Where are you from?" Blair wanted to know.

"Los Angeles. The park is a work camp now."

Marcus felt like there should be some sort of acknowledging to what Derek had just said but no one seemed disturbed by Derek's words and Blair didn't miss a beat by asking Wisher the same question.

Wisher flushed and mumbled: "My computer."

Blair and Marcus snickered but Derek looked at his friend in disbelief.

"I used to play every game I could get my hands on, but my favourite one was always chess. I had a friend in Russia I used to play against over the Internet. I mean didn't know one word in Russian and he couldn't speak English but through the game we understood each other." Wisher looked around and added with a wry smile: "Now I feel like I just admitted to worshipping the devil."

Blair laughed and patted his back: "I think we can forgive you as long as you promise not to do it anymore."

"I don't know, do you think some of the machines can play a decent party of chess?"

"Why don't you ask him?" Derek bit out. Marcus held up his hands in defeat and grinned at Wisher:

"Sorry to disappoint you but I ripped my computer brain out when I chose your side and before that I used to be lousy at chess."

"Maybe you could recommend someone."

"I think I left my address book in my other brain, too."

"Come on, Marcus?" Blair asked: "What do you miss?"

"You mean beside toothpaste and soap?" Marcus asked with a grin and everyone, even Derek, laughed.

"That's cheating." Blair decided.

"And it's not like you smell any better." Kyle had woken up and crawled over to the fire only to drape himself over Marcus like a human-sized cat.

"You'd know." Derek muttered but since their last fight he tried not to be too venomous to Marcus when Kyle was around.

"I thought I stink." Marcus asked amused but wrapped an arm around Kyle to hold him steady.

"Never said that," Kyle pointed out: "I merely pointed out that you don't smell any better than the rest of us."

"Come on, Marcus," Wisher picked up their earlier conversation: "What do you miss? Tell us."

Marcus stared into the flames and thought about it for a minute. There were a lot of things he was used to take for granted simply because for him those things had been natural until a few months ago. For the others it had been fifteen years of getting used to living without running water, heat, electricity, hygiene products and medicine, or in Kyle's case could even remember they had existed in the first place.

"I have no idea." He answered honestly: "Ask me in a year or so, when I stopped missing soap." Before anyone could do anything else than roll their eyes, Kate interrupted them:

"Hi." She said cheerily, followed by John and Barnes: "Can we join in?"

"Sure, why not." Blair answered and everyone shuffled around to make space for the three.

Kate told a detailed story of how worse pregnancy cravings were in a post-apocalyptic world, or in her own words:

"I would have happily gone and punched the first Terminator I'd have seen in the teeth just for some pickled herring fillet with a side of chocolate sauce."

Barnes shared a tale of playing football with his friends in a park, not unlike the one Derek had told them until the conversation turned to John, who had spend most of them time awkwardly watching Kyle and Marcus as if he didn't know whether to say anything or not.

"What about you Connor? What do you miss?" Blair asked.

"I don't dwell on it." John answered after a moment.

"You're almost as bad as Marcus." Blair protested and even Kate nudged him in the ribs:

"There has to be something." She needled. John still looked like he really didn't want to answer but then he finally made up his mind and said:

"Chess, I miss chess. I learned it when I was a kid and I used to play it all the time."

Marcus, Blair and Derek all turned to Wisher and grinned at him.

"Looks like Marcus doesn't have to ask his robot buddies after all." Blair declared and at John's puzzled look elaborated:

"Wisher told us before you came that he misses his computer because he had this friend in Russia he used to play chess with." Both John and Wisher looked intrigued.

"I didn't know that." John said. Wisher shrugged:

"You hardly could, I never told someone this before."

"We don't have a game." John remembered.

"We could make one up."

"A match made in heaven." Kate whispered to Blair and both women grinned at each other.

"What do you miss?" Kate asked and after Blair had repeated her answer from earlier, she said:

"We have milk powder."

Blair only groaned.


End file.
